The Wilmette-based Shiner Group seeks an amendment to the special use permit for an 8.5-acre parcel on the southeast corner of Route 60 and Saunders Road, kitty-corner from Conway Office Park and just northwest of the Amberley Woods subdivision.

The development, called Conway Neighborhood Market, would allow a special-use mix of retail, restaurant and service businesses.

The city's Plan Commission is scheduled to continue a February public hearing on the project to April 9, and the Building Review Board will continue its February hearing to May 7. The board's mission is to preserve the special character and uniqueness of various neighborhoods in the city and protect property values throughout the community. The city's Historic Landmark Commission is also studying the project and meets next on April 2.

The city urges interested parties to watch its website for updates on meetings concerning the project.

Conway Neighborhood Market would have a 45,000-square-foot Whole Foods and three smaller buildings, including a restaurant and separate bank with a drive-through. The new buildings would be a maximum of 1.5 stories high with a total footprint of 71,000 square feet. Vehicular entrances to the site would be on Saunders Road and Route 60. Planners would limit vehicular, but not pedestrian access, from the site to Amberley Court and Amberley Woods condominiums, to the east.

About a dozen residents living near the proposed site spoke for nearly 90 minutes at the Plan Commission's Feb. 12 hearing, voicing mixed support for the project, pending accommodations from the developer.

Richard Ernest, treasurer of the Amberley Woods Condominium Association, said "we are the building most immediately impacted, with our 45 unit owners. The predominance of our unit owners are lifetime Lake Foresters, often downsizers like myself.

"We bought there with full knowledge that this was a commercial parcel, but we bought with the understanding that we could access Saunders Road and Conway Farms Road (to the west and southeast)." Ernest said in a recent poll of members of our condominium "the operational gate concept (limiting vehicles to area residents only) was overwhelming endorsed."

Eileen Weber, secretary and past president of the Amberley Woods Condominium Association, said building aesthetics, specified landscaping, and native trees and plantings along Route 60 should not only be a part of the developer agreement, "but part of the plan should be a five-year guarantee on plantings".

Linda Liang, a resident of Asbury court, said she has lived in Lake Forest since age 11 and can't accept the present proposal on a number of fronts.

"The developers are removing many trees and a historic mansion," said Liang. "Despite the trees they are going to put in along Route 60, what you will see is still this big building from the road.

"The architecture of the buildings is not in keeping with Lake Forest. Yes, it's wood frame but it doesn't look anything like the (nearby) Conway Farms clubhouse, which has cornices and looks like a house that could have been there in the 1920s. (The proposed Whole Foods) is a big flat building with giant picture windows. It's not in keeping with the architecture of Amberley Woods or Lake Forest. Most of the people are retired and I feel like the noise, the trucks and the lights will be detrimental."

William Shiner, president of Shiner Group, before the public hearing portion of the plan commission meeting, said one criticism of the site plan, as over-utilizing the parcel, is unfounded. "What we have on this site is a 71,000-square-foot shopping center on 8.5 acres. Our floor area ratio is 18.5 percent and that is the amount of building area toward total land area."

Pointing to the Sunset Foods development on Waukegan Road in Lake Forest, just over a mile south, Shiner said, "The utilization of land at Sunset Foods is on 6.3 acres, and we're on 8.5 acres and we'll have the identical amount of square footage."

Claiming that "Whole Foods has never closed a store they developed in the entire history of their existence," Shiner said income from the project, for the city, is projected at $15 to $20 million over 20 years.